Solomon's book and amendments

[ottawagardener]

So I haven't actually read the whole thing and I always brace myself before reading one of his books because he likes to tell people why they are crazy wrong folk - heck sometimes he makes good points - but the little skimming I've done suggests that I have to do a bunch of math (ps I don't mind math) and buy a bunch of stuff to prevent my family from withering away. Anyone use the methods found in the Intelligent Gardener?

On a side note, since we've moved to our acreage, we're mostly doing well so kudos to soil? Maybe?

I have very light soil that grades to heavy clay. It seems to be where once a riverbank was as beyond the obvious grading of the rock type, we dig up old clam beds sometimes if we go deep enough. However, we also have metamorphic outcroppings occupying another part of the property giving our maple syrup a wonderfully mineral taste.

In terms of veggie growth, mostly everything grows well including the earwigs - the earwigs are exceptionally fat Have nice yields on sweet potatoes, squash, cabbage, root crops and so forth. I wouldn't say they were extra lush as the lighter soils can be drought prone.

Anyhow, thoughts? Should I do a mega soil test? Should I just toss a bunch of rock dust and seaweed on? Should I stick my fingers in my ears and say "Lalalalala" ?

[diane]

I've read it a couple of times. The reason I have bought all of Steve's books is that he keeps experimenting. Every book has new information. I don't figure he is telling me I'm wrong, but is admitting that what he told me to do back in the first couple of books was wrong, so here's how to do it now.

Last year I planted duplicates of about 90 kinds of tomatoes on my clay-soiled allotment and my sandy-soiled home garden. At the allotment tomato plants would be big and producing tomatoes. At home some remained almost the same size as when they were planted and didn't put out any flowers till October. So I had a soil test done and will add amendments this year.

It seems as though you would have lots of minerals since you have so many different kinds of soils. And you shouldn't fade away. He had problems because he lived on only vegetables grown on his impoverished soil. I imagine you have a more varied diet.

[oxbowfarm]

Steve Solomon is a jackass. Seems to make a habit of writing gardening books about how everyone is stupid except for him. The man IMPORTED his topsoil and then wants to tell people how to garden, "When it Counts". Yet somehow every agricultural society has managed to NOT starve to death since the invention of agriculture till he started writing his know-it-all books. He does have some knowledge, but his arrogance and patronizing tone make me throw the book across the room before I get to it. By the way, all of the seed you've ever saved is garbage Telsing, throw it away and buy quality seed from a quality seed company.

[steev]

Don't know how much soil-moving you're up for, but it sounds like your two extremes would mix very advantageously. Clay is mostly great, except for its lousy physical characteristics. I grew up in NorCal's Central Valley, where there was lots of adobe ( black clay ), very rich, but a total bitch to work. I suggest as much organic matter as you can work in; if you have access to plentiful seaweed, lucky you!

If you can get some clay into the light stuff, it will help, but organic matter is your best bet for water retention.

As for soil tests, you might prefer buying a decent test kit ( Gempler's has some { you Gempler's guys know where to send my free test kit, for the plug } ) to spending for somebody else to do your testing; just a question of frequency of curiosity and technical inclination. Having spent years as a bench chemist, I admit to a bias toward DIY, but my congenital intellectual lazy bastardness has prevented me from doing any soil testing on my farm, aside from one run 10 years ago, so I have a vague idea of how my soil was before I started amending it. Given my disinclination to grow more than large patches of anything, I see no point in my taking industrial measures toward control of the ecosystem.

Exceptionally fat earwigs make for exceptionally happy poultry.

Wow, Ox! You seem to have a passionate opinion. Never having read any of his books, I suspect I won't, having respect for your demonstrated expertise and judgment; there's no shortage on my reading list, that I should spend time on self-serving BS.

[templeton]

Hey, Ox,
did you chuck the book AT him? He's moved to Tasmania....
Ever thought of taking up discus?
I've only skimed a bit of one book, but concluded i didn't have acres of land to grow a few unirrigated carrots on it, so didn't continue.
t

[ottawagardener]

You guys make me snicker. I am planning on digging a pond in the more clay bit so had this idea of moving some clay to some of the beach sand bit though I'm not sure of the wisdom of that. The beginning of the book borrows on price-ian conceptions of you are killing yourself if you don't' return to chewing whole grains milled on stone and I can tell by looking at your jaw bone was a bit irksome but I was prepared to find the gold in the pyrite.

Yes, I've been increasing my poultry to take advantage of the free food source

[jondear]

Most people who write books do so to make money. That being said, showmanship would help sell some books I would think. The job of the reader is to separate the seed from the chaff.

I am a fan of understanding your soil and to me, a soil test is one step toward that goal. I also think getting your ratios in proper proportions is a worthwhile endeavor, even if it means purchasing some outside inputs.

[flowerweaver]

Having our soil tested at an alternative lab that showed not only what was in the soil, but also what was bio-available, was really helpful to us. We have a home test kit to see how the different fields are progressing.

Very few gardening or farming books are ever written from the perspective of the desert southwest, so I find most of them useless. A lot of them are targeted at the back yard hobbyist. While I think highly of Gary Paul Nabhan, I take issue with scalability of many of his ideas in 'Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land: Lessons from Desert Farmers on Adapting to Climate Uncertainty'.

For instance, he spends a chapter talking up the historic use of ollas for irrigation. I would have to become a potter with a kiln to make them, or else pay upwards of $48/ea, and I would need hundreds if not thousands. I would have to back-breakingly dig through rocky soil to place them and back fill. Then there would be the issue of how to fill all the ollas (one by one, with a hose?) and the mosquitoes they would breed. Maybe this works great in sandy Arizona, or if you have one palm tree to keep alive, or a few raised beds, but not here, not growing everything you eat. I doubt if those growing seed stock for Native Seed are using ollas. Drip irrigation works great for me.

[ottawagardener]

Funny you should mention that flower weaver as I've thought about ollas too as I have some droughty soil and droughty years (not like you of course) but I've thought of using them to administer compost teas as well. Anyhow, I had the same feeling - would need to be a potter or far too crafty or clone myself so I had more time or something. Of course there is drip irrigation which would be tricky to set up here. Not impossible but costly, would require some creativity.

[12540dumont]

I agree with Ox regarding the book. I really dislike being told that I'm ignorant. (I know that after 20 years of farming, there's still a hell'olot that I do not know and haven't learned and may yet learn, or might never know. (It's a learning process).

Now regarding your soil. I bought a book by Walters called "Weed Control without Poison", years ago. One of my primary weeds is Malva. I grow Malva as big as Hollyhocks...
Cheeseweed to the rest of you. According to Walters, that means my soil is low on calcium. Guess what? I had a problem with peppers a few years ago...turns out they didn't have enough calcium. Alan Kapuler diagnosed my problem before he even saw the photo! So, every time I plant peppers or any other plant which suffers if there's not enough calcium, I add bone meal. (My well is high in calcium....how does that make sense).

I went ahead and put the greensand, and Azomite and several other mineral amendments in the sections of the farm that we had not raised animals on. Seven years of raising sheep on grass in the spring and alfalfa in the winter really made some lovely soil. We figured that if we were going to do row crops for 20 years, it would be a good thing to re-mineralize the soil. So thankful that I don't have to buy alfalfa now, it's going for almost $20 dollars a bale here. (or more!)

I compost every crop...every year. I fish emulsion anything that's corn or a heavy feeder. And I start every seed with micorrhizae.

We have a biochar experiment going on. (hardwood fruit trees in the Weber with bones every time we BBQ, which is a lot in California). I don't have to add clay because it's there in the soil. We have a urine bucket that the char from the Weber goes into. I spread it in the paths of where ever I think potatoes will be next year. Leo tills it in. When I plant potatoes, the paths become beds. This prevents the biochar from leeching away minerals the first year. I don't know how this working yet, as it's too soon to tell a big difference.


My soil looks better every year. Yes, I still have fat earwigs, gophers, diabolical dibrotica, squash bugs, fleas, leetle tiny teeny birds (they belong to Steev) that eat everything in sight. But what I do have...melons that are sweeter every year. Carrots that my son steals out of the garden...because they are just so sweet. I have cornmeal and corn flour that folks fight over, and asparagus that makes people stop me on the street to exclaim that they had my asparagus and they had to go back to the restaurant that served it two nights in a row! (This is NOT a cheap restaurant!)

I do soil testing. Every year, I test for pH.


So, there you go, that's my ideas about soil. Take a good look a your weeds. They have a lot to tell you, it's free advice.

My dad used to say that the reason farmers planted mustard in tree crops was to bring up nutrients from far below. They would then till these into the soil. Wish my dad was still alive, I think he'd love this week's Pasta Primavera... oh yeah.


When I can put my arm into the soil up to my elbow, I think I can rest.

By the way, speaking of adobe, never ever ever listen to the folks who tell you to add sand to clay soil, that with a little blood and straw is adobe. Unless of course, you are making bricks!

[reed]

I don't like books that make it sound like I can't grow a turnip without the technical precision and financial expense of an intensive care unit.

[ottawagardener]

You all convinced me. I actually have been working hard on adding life into the soil and by that I mean yellow gold, chicken foraging, leaf mould in between the really raised beds, manure when I can get it for free and cover cropping. The soil is getting better year upon year. Part of my problem with earwigs is in fact that there is organic matter for them to gobble up. They really appreciate it. But I do grow some great vegetables (not all of them are great darn it but lots). I've had the ground tested for heavy metals and have observed weed and plant growth in general. I guess I should do a basic ph, soil nutrient test. I grow nice cole crops but my potatoes could be better so it could be that it is a bit sweet which would be hilarious as I'm just beside a whole load of gneiss but then there are those clam beds. Actually the blueberries do fine too but I've amended that are with powder of sulfur. On a side note, the Hepetica that grows in the gneissic sugarbush is the kind that prefers acid soil. Perhaps I'm just a mixed bag

[ottawagardener]

Other crops that do very well: sweet potatoes, peppers, cole crops, squash, parsnips, carrots if the earwigs don't get them, all sorts of greens and perennials. Weeds that I grow well Canadian fleabane - took off after the 2012 drought but I'm getting it under control, some grasses, mmmm… not much else is a huge hassle.

[flowerweaver]

Your land sounds as diverse as mine, Ottawa. I like to think it gives us more opportunity to observe and try things. For me learning to read a landscape as a grower is as important as learning to read a river if you kayak or traffic if you navigate a big city.

12540dumont I also have cheeseweed (though it's not rampant) and my soil is highly calcareous, so go figure.

[ottawagardener]

Actually I have cheeses but it's very prostate so takes up space but when you pull one bam there's a whole lot of space.